


A Bolt of Blue

by Talullah



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 03:30:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5728054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talullah/pseuds/Talullah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sean Renard makes a phone call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bolt of Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trobadora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/gifts).



> Set from S04E11 to S05E06.
> 
> [Disclaimer/Blanket Statement](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Talullah/profile)

Sean Renard swallowed the bitter ball stuck in his throat. Juliette! Juliette with platinum hair, Juliette with tight leather and most of all, Juliette alive. Power emanating from her, forming an almost palpable aura, even thicker than before, but somehow transmuted into something subtly different. Then the exit, as dramatic as the entrance and she was gone. His mind raced. She saved Nick. Did it mean she still loved him? Where had she been? With whom? What had happened, why the change in appearance, why the silence, why didn’t she strike them, in fact saved them? He glanced at Nick; from his expression, the Grimm knew nothing more than he did.

He went to his car and drove all the way home, absently stopping at stop signs, advancing with green lights, signaling right and left as needed. He almost hoped that she would be there, waiting for him, as in the early days of her shifting.

* * *

Sean Renard closed the door of his apartment and leaned his forehead against the solid surface. He could hear Juliette’s footsteps growing fainter until she was completely gone. Her perfume, sweet and with a soft note of musk, had rapidly faded. Off she was to Henrietta’s, hoping to get herself fixed. What a waste.

Hexenbiests were much maligned among the Wesen, and by association, Zauberbiests. Perhaps it was the otherness of their magic. More than a physical condition, being a Hexenbiest, and to a much lesser degree, a half-Zauberbiest, meant the manipulation of the forces of nature by processes that were foreign to both Wesen and Kehrseite. Yes, they could be manipulative and cold but Renard would rather think that they were not the power-hungry, cold, scheming, ultra-dangerous, raging psychopaths both Wesen and Grimms chose to believe. 

An angry Hexenbiest was someone free from religious morality or the weight of commonplace decency, or, as his mother quite aptly put it, social hypocrisy. That meant that they had no qualms in searching advantage for themselves nor take the path of revenge if, like Adalind, they were cornered into a tight spot. That didn’t mean that they could not be dedicated parents. Elizabeth’s warmth and all the sacrifices she had made for him jumped to mind; he chose to ignore how Catherine had abandoned Adalind as soon as her daughter lost her magic and replace that thought with Adalind’s despair at the loss of Diana. 

Likewise, a Zauberbiest was no knight in shining armour. Their motives were complex and deep but not necessarily evil. When Nick had become a Grimm, Sean had buffered things for him for a while, giving him just enough subtle protection until Nick could hold his own. The blutbat, Monroe, had been a wondrous case of serendipity. Under his tutelage, Nick had become what Renard could have not dared hoping in his wildest dreams - an ambiguous Grimm, a man who was not prey to zealotism, like his aunt and so many other Grimms, and who could balance his instinct for the kill with an understanding of justice and tolerance for the dual nature of the Wessen. At first, Renard had hoped to prime him as much as possible without revealing himself to Nick, but Monroe had done such a much better job than he could.

He thought of himself as a friend of Nick’s, but not in the conventional sense, for sure. For one, he was Nick’s boss and it is always convenient to keep a nice, cushioning distance from one’s subordinates. On the other hand, he did not feel he had to disclose everything he knew, everything he was to a friend, even a friend closer than Nick. Not that he had many of those. But what else was friendship if not common interests, an amount of scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch yours, and a collection of moments that built up to an undeniable closeness? He had even introduced Nick to Juliette, back in the day, when a beautiful, big-eyed young woman had entered his precinct, demanding to see the captain since the sergeant at the front desk would not take her denounces of animal abuse seriously enough. He gave Nick the witness and the case to his newest detective.

He had thought her pretty and fiery, in a highly contained way. Nothing that he would really want for himself, not for longer than one evening. Then there had been the curse. Renard winced as he thought of those days. Unbearable desire, as he had never felt for any woman and yet he knew he couldn’t touch her, not only because of the magic, but also because of Nick. The Grimm he had so cautiously groomed, supported, hid, could not be lost because of a woman. And Juliette, as fascinating as she might seem under the curse, was still just a Kehrseite woman who would be repulsed as his real self, the one that Adalind so liked. And so he had done his best to stay away.

It made matters more complex that Nick also had his very special brand of power that ineffably drew Renard to him. The bottomless pit in a Grimm’s eye might frighten ordinary Wessen, but for an informed Zauberbiest it was like opium. Beyond strategic interest, Renard had a very real, very palpable interest in Nick Burkhardt, in all the dark energy that he exuded, and, mostly, in the way he saw both his darkest darkness in the bottom of Nick’s eyes hand in hand with Nick’s own unacknowledged gloom.

After the breaking of the curse, he had been in full control of himself. He looked at Juliette in the eye, no vestige of shame or even remembrance. If her lip twitched or a faint color rose to her cheeks, he changed the subject to Nick. It was as if nothing had changed, on the surface. Beneath it, however… she was always on the back of his mind. He noticed how strained things were with Nick, but what good did that do? Even if they would breakup, even if finally Juliette would tire of giving Nick unrelenting support to get nothing in return, it would be a scandal to pursue a relationship with her subordinate’s ex-fiancee; it would be crazy to have someone in his life that his enemies could go after; and it would be lonely to never have her want him, all of him, with his Zauber side.

Had he been born a normal man, he would probably have confided in a close friend or in his mother. His mother would certainly have mixed feelings about what he was doing, but Elizabeth was too smart, too worldly to give unsolicited advice. As for friends, Renard had learned a long time ago to keep to himself. 

Then, there she was at his doorstep, glorious, emanating power darker and more violent than anything ny other Hexenbiest he had known had produced. And she wanted it away. What a waste. This beautiful, intense woman was wasted on Nick, who would never embrace the imperious thing she was now. And what a waste, all this power concentrated on Juliette, intelligent, beautiful Juliette, and she dying to get rid of it. He sent her to Henrietta with a heavy heart, not because he wanted to help Juliette, but rather because he suspected Henrietta would never let her waste all that potential. He was no knight in shining armour, no, even if his actions might look righteous or generous on occasion.

When she came back to his place, a few days later, with the clothes on her back, something inside him relaxed. He had been holding his breath, not because of the dreams or of the menace of the Royals; he had been waiting for her.

And still… He made her at home, took care of her, not that a Hexenbiest of that calibre needed help from anyone, and then he went outside and called Nick, tried to make him see the mistake he was making. But Nick, obdurate as ever, was not available for that talk. And, coming back inside, he could see that Juliette was reeling from the breakup, shaking inside with pain, lack of comprehension, self-repulse and maybe, just maybe, a little curiosity, a little appreciation for her new gifts lurking beneath all the confusion. He wanted to hold her and kiss her like the hero of some rom com, only he was not and she was not ready. He had to wait, he had to learn to find a way to endure the wait as he watched her embrace what she was, to see her bloom, ripen.

The days Juliette stayed at his place were the days in the last few months that Sean Renard felt most alive, for all the things that had passed. The air crackled with tension, magical and sexual and he knew it was not just him. The more Juliette gave into the magic, the more he felt the raw power that lurked just beneath that porcelain skin beckoning him. Her eyes lingered on him, then fled to the books. Juliette still tried to play the good girl, the faithful girlfriend but Renard knew that she now could see into him, just beneath the surface and that she wanted him to woge for her and with that heavy desire came an equal amount of fear, fear she might like it only a little too much.

If only. If only he had not been under attack, if only Henrietta had lived long enough to teach Juliette a little more. Juliette needed allies who understood what she had become. And he had taken that away from her. He wondered at that bitter ball at the back of his throat he just couldn’t swallow. Was that what they called regret?

* * *

The night had been long and sleepless. He had waited for a knock on his door that never came, for a waft of sweet and musk, for a hot kiss. Juliette. Wherever she was, he needed to see her. Not just because he needed to know what group held her; not because his time might have finally come; not because he wanted to play the knight in shining armour again; not even because she was such a powerful weapon and he could not lose her. Just because he was empty without her. Just because he would never have peace of mind without being close to her once more, just one more time, at least. Was that what they called love?

Renard sat at his desk and shot off a series of emails. Then he picked his phone. It was three in the morning, but Nick picked it right up, not sounding sleepy in the slightest.

“We need to talk,” Renard said. He waited as Nick moved out from one room into the other.

“Juliette. We need to do something,” he said, when Nick was ready.

There was a moment of silence that stretched for so long, Renard thought Nick might hang up. Then, came the reply. “I’ll be at your place in 15.”

_Finis  
January 2016_


End file.
